A new feature is being tested by Apple, according to reports, that allows iOS banner notifications to be displayed on the iCloud website. It’s unknown whether this particular occurrence was only a one-time test or a sign of things to come.

While notifications on the iCloud website may prompt some to scratch their head, this could actually indicate Apple’s plans to roll out rich web apps to iCloud that would benefit from the ability to display notifications, much like Google’s Chrome lets web apps render unobtrusive notifications even when the browser is minimized…

The discovery, first reported by MacRumors, is interesting on many levels. According to the publication, the test message appears at the top of the browser window upon logging into iCloud.com.

But why bother, right?

Author Jordan Golson offers one possible explanation:

It’s possible that Apple will include syncing code in iCloud to share notifications across devices, for calendar alerts and new mail, or the notifications may be used for some other purpose.

Bear in mind that Apple with Mountain Lion began allowing websites to push alerts to Macs via the new built-in Notification Center feature.

Expanding upon iOS and OS X notifications, the ability to render those unobtrusive alerts on the iCloud website is a logical evolution of the Notification Center infrastructure which debuted in iOS 4.

On the other hand, it could be nothing as Apple could be simply providing this feature to enable Calendar and Mail web apps on iCloud.com to display alerts.

Of course, this could also mean that additional web apps are coming to iCloud as well because I doubt Apple would bother enabling push alerts via Notification Center on iCloud.com just for two web apps.